Ahead: more warning about “surprise” medical bills from out-of-network providers, more standardized out-of-pocket costs and better information about the size of the insurers’ network of doctors and hospitals.

Between the rapacity of insurers, GOP assaults and its own flaws, the Affordable Care Act is failing its promise to curb costs and make insurance coverage affordable. Republicans have no alternative. But a better one already exists.

Individuals can still enroll in a Cigna plan by seeing an insurance agent. But enrollment through the Marketplace, which begins Nov. 1, is the only way to obtain tax credits that subsidize the cost of premiums.

It’s 1.1 million fewer than in 2013, but almost a third of the uninsured are eligible for Obamacare but haven’t enrolled, 15% have chosen not to enroll in employee-provided health care, and the rest are uninsured for a variety of other reasons.

The increase, due to the Affordable Care Act, is unprecedented since the creation of Medicare and Medicaid 50 years ago. Expanding Medicaid–as Florida did not–would have added to the ranks of the insured even more.

Some 1.3 million Floridians and millions more across the country will not lose their health insurance subsidies as the U.S. Supreme Court this morning ruled decisively, by a 6-3 vote, that the subsidies are legal and must remain in place, even in states that have not established their own health insurance exchanges.

Floridians received at least $389 million in March from the federal government to help pay for their health insurance. The subsidies are at the center of a Supreme Court case challenging the health law. The case will be decided this month.

Federal officials fired back in court against Gov. Rick Scott’s contention that the Obama administration has unconstitutionally tried to link expanding Medicaid with the continuation of a key health-care funding program.

Flagler County Health Department Administrator Patrick Johnson is resigning at the end of the month to take a public health post in North Carolina as county departments in Florida see their roles shift and diminish.

Health insurance plans around the country are failing to provide many legally-mandated services including birth control and cancer screenings, five years after the Affordable Care Act made it a requirement.

The federal government confirmed that it gave officials in those states the same message delivered to Texas and Florida about the risk to funding for so-called “uncompensated care pools” — Medicaid money that helps pay the cost of care for the uninsured.

Scott’s opposition means Florida would again forego $47 billion in federal aid over the next 10 years while fewer poor Floridians would have health coverage–and the state’s budget would lose $2.2 billion in current aid that federal officials will no longer provide to the state under its existing medicaid system, which falls short of federal standards.

Subsidies may be lost for 90 percent of ACA participants if the U.S. Supreme Court rules that residents of states like Florida, which have no health marketplace of their own, may not qualify for federal subsidies. The Supreme Court hears arguments in the case next week.

The Obama administration will allow a special health law enrollment period from March 15 to April 30 for consumers who realize while filling out their taxes that they owe a fee for not signing up for coverage last year.

Brisk enrollment in Flagler County and Palm Coast is nevertheless accompanied by individuals’ continued struggles, financial and ideological, over the Affordable Care Act even as Florida leads the nation in Obamacare enrollments, with 1.3 million people, and more expected ahead of the deadline.

The U.S. Supreme Court in March will hear arguments in a case, King v. Burwell, that will decide whether in states like Florida, which do not have health care marketplaces of their own, people ensured under Obamacare may receive federal subsidies. If the Supreme Court rules that the subsidies are illegal, individuals will lose those […]

A coalition of businesses groups, local officials and healthcare industry representatives has rolled out a plan to insure nearly one million low-income Floridians who fall in the so-called Medicaid coverage gap.